Britbike forum Forums British motorcycles in general British motorcycles in general tire pump?

While cleaning and repairing the A65L frame, I see what looks like a brazed-on hand pump mount on the rear of the frame. What years had these mounts and are these pumps available somewhere?

they were the common as dirt thing when i was a kid and rode push bikes

https://www.ebay.com/itm/125550397313?hash=item1d3b630781:g:um4AAOSw0GNiIEfV&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAAAoJIMf%2BOwvNvXFdtT48pF8w7AGTNjhwtANh%2BDiztAfihmA0vFWN7zrPeh%2BFDmLj04hQzVWB7lCak24Xw3nVfxzoCwMVnY7xRom2%2F8sXFVobWYELa9F1S%2BrGcho3u5EOonWJRHCbRFgzRcsNQmXpOoU%2F6ceWbUxwnekUs5JeCohuvLHdPDZa8J%2Bo%2Bi%2FzA%2FdKGgMCjJZzyZSSm%2FJwBJSrDxQpM%3D%7Ctkp%3ABk9SR8iK5JX5YA

The mounts may have been standard, but the tire pumps were not, at least on A65s sold in the USA.
Too easy for kids to steal them.

Gary, you have more important things to do to get the bike back together than to worry about a tire pump.

The Hodaka 100B I've owned since new (1971) has one under the gas tank. Almost 50 years ago I found it useful once having picked up a nail while riding along the railroad tracks. I see It's longer than the mounts allow on the BSA.
Being a first time BSA owner and restorer, I have an insatiable appetite for what some may think is useless knowledge about a particular marque. I've never felt I wanted to be the bike owner at an antique show that couldn't answer the most elementary question about what I rode there.
Thank you for the information. I'm glad you're in the category of educating us novices. Gary

Try a few variations as well.
tyre pump
tyre inflator

eBay Ireland seems to be lousy with them.
Probably traded for a pint of Murphy's.

still available as old stuff , that will fit , old branded stuff that is more "correct"
... or as new Chinese reproduction .
there is a part number shown in the 67 parts book for A65's .... 90-9237
( but i think this same part # covers many years and comes in 2 two different lengths ? )

looks like this
( hose unscrews and stores in handle ) ( closed handle is spring loaded and compresses to fit between the lugs )
my 67 mountain cub has the 2 lugs on the frame , up under the timing side of the gas tank
... but i have no idea what other bikes had lugs ... or when they stopped
For rivet Counters , i see the brands like , Motoplas and apex , but dont know what is what

I just purchased one from Baxter’s

Had to take it apart because it was “stiff”……about a tablespoon of dark dust came out????? Leather cup was dry as a bone.

Didn’t have a recessed area for the lower frame tab to fit into…..had to come up with something for that.

I have another one I got years ago and it worked out fine.

Mine are only for looks (imagine that on one of my bikes)….I don't rely on then.

neats foot oil!

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...fnMvb-gIVBMzICh03rQYVEAAYAiAAEgITHfD_BwE

remember when carburetters used leather cups in the accelerator pumps? we were all savages then

kevin........I got a couple bottles of that here. boots,work belts and an old floor hand pump all get some of it from time to time.

BUT.......AngloBike's link cost me some money and by the looks of it, it's well spent. If Gary's interested I'll let him know how this one turns out. Not sure how long it'll take......but I'm not in a hurry.

I'm VERY disappointed in this new one I just bought. I have two others that are so much better built and suit the purpose. I have to admit i do understand where Gary was coming from. Most of the duplex framed BSA unit singles have the tabs and it drives me nuts to see them unused. The pumps I have "would" pump a tire up in a pinch....but it'd take a while so I don't rely on them.

BTW—- Motoplas was a BSA company specializing in accessories for bikes.
A lot of the hand pumps were made by a company called Bluemels located in a village called Wolston- just a few miles from the Meriden factory.
My ex wife’s late father was the stores foreman there back in the day.
I remember once I asked him if he could get me a pump.
A few days later he gave me a cardboard box with about 20 in it.
Interestingly Wolston was where a lot of the Meriden workers drank on Thursday evenings ( Thursday was pay day— always in cash).
You could get anything there for a fiver ( five pounds about eight dollars).
I remember buying a set of Triumph letter and number stamps there.
They had to be genuine— they were in use at Meriden that morning!

I have heard that stolen stamps story often.

Why didn't Triumph have a tool-room policy of "sign out" the stamps at the beginning of the work shift, "sign in" the stamps back into the tool room at shift's end? Some sort of enforced worker responsibility might have controlled these losses.

Or would some union have raised hell about it?

Theft in British industry was practically an industry itself!

“It’s coming off a broad table” was a common phrase.

Nice. I wonder what the etymology of that is.
'Fell off the back of a truck' is used this side of the pond.

Allegedly “the British Shoe Company” made such a loss on pairs of shoes sent to Liverpool docks that someone came up with the idea of sending only right shoes to Liverpool and left to Glasgow. They assumed that it would cut back the losses.

Within three months the losses were back to normal as the dockers in each city managed to organise.

In a way I hope it was true.

Some cargoes had a few boxes of the product on the outside of the sheeting, so transport and warehouse workers could steal their share without spoiling the cargo.

When I was at university in UK I spent a few weekends with a college mate who lived in Liverpool.
His father was a dock worker in Liverpool.
At that time color TVs were just being introduced into UK and were very expensive.
My friends house had a big color TV in every room in the house.

Taking a slice of the action was in those days was considered to be part of the wages--- which in money terms were not exactly great.
There were workforce norms in terms of how much could be "released" and subtle (and not so subtle) sanctions against anyone who was thought to be too greedy.

Seems centuries ago now!

Ordered 10-12. Delivered 10-20.

Shipping wasn't any more expensive than a trip from the West Coast.

Difference like NIGHT and DAY.

This pump purchased from Anglobike's (THANK YOU SIR!) link is a VERY nice piece of kit. ALL METAL and smooth as glass. WELL WORTH the selling price and MADE IN ENGLAND. There's just no comparing the two.

I'm as happy as a little girl.

I'll share some photos later......I gota camp to get ready for and I'm running late.

UPDATE since I'm working on the bike (night before a ride?) and was a bit harsh about the pump I got from Baxters. I said it was plastic....that's not true. It has a light alloy (?) body with a plastic handle. When I opened it up it had a "dark" dust inside......maybe that was the lube? BUT my main complaint is....it doesn't have a place for the lower frame tab. The bottom of the pump is made of the same (best I can tell) metal as the body and it's flat......no tab indention. So I epoxied a thick metal spacer and that worked.

SO..........I love this new pump. IMO ( and you know what that's worth) it's a much nicer pump. BUT......I put it on the bike, I'm sitting there admiring it and.........realize......how bad it'd feel if this one fell of. It's about double the price.....and very nice. Damnit. My other (read cheaper) pumps have stayed on my bikes just fine.......never lost one.

you dont look like a little girl tho

I'd like to report that the Made in England pump did 580 miles last weekend and never even rotated between the tabs.......solid as a rock.

kevin.......uh....you ain't hitting on me, are you?

im not quite that hard up yet

I understand completely kevin and take no offense. Rejection’s something I’m used to by now. 😂

So you're not going to send any pictures?

Forgot about that completely……my apologies to anyone who was waiting for those.

Photos once I get home tonight.

I had just purchased the pump from the US vendor and was in the process of making it where I could use it when this thread appeared. I never finished it so it will clearly show what I had to do to it to make it work.

Once I got the UK pump in my hands……I just pushed the other pump to the back of the bench.

Well.......I never thought to measure the Made in England pump when it arrived. I just put it on the bike. Now that I have the two side by side I notice the Made in England pump is a 13". I'm pretty sure the stock pump is 12" and I double checked and that's what I ordered. BUT.......I don't have a problem with it. Hopefully that extra 1" of compression won't make it fail prematurely. It rode 580 miles this past weekend. I've pulled it off and on a couple of times and it doesn't bottom out when on the tabs. The 12' plastic pump fits the frame tabs well (after a fix) too.



The MIE pump is all metal and you notice the weight right away. The other has a thin/light metal body and shaft. The handle and shaft nut are plastic. Lots of play at the shaft/nut. There is no play at the shaft/nut in the MIE pump. BOTH pump air. I haven't pulled the MIE pump apart but did the other one a because it felt stiff...dry? There was a brown powder in there and I guess it was the lube. I cleaned it out and used neatsfoot oil on the leather cup and it works a lot better IMO.

My main complaint with the China pump is there was no provision for the lower frame tab on the bottom of the pump. Bottom of the pump was made of the same thin metal as the body with no indention for the frame tab. So I was in the process of adding something to fix that when I stopped and ordered the MIE pump.



The Made in England pump's bottom looks like this.



Made in China shipped to me was $49.00

Made in England (and shipped from there) was around $80

The plastic one works........looks the part on the bike. But.......it's hard not to like the Made in England pump once you have them both in your hand.